Porous components, such as but not limited to 3D printed parts, may be formed into parts which are required to transfer or hold fluids in a leak tight manner. A popular method to quickly produce a leak tight part is to manufacture a component having a porous structure (such as a 3D printed part) via a 3D printer. Then, due to the porous nature of the component, a sealant is applied to the part by submerging the entire part in a tank of a surface sealant such as an epoxy. Subsequently, in order to make sure that there are no leaks in the surface sealant, the part may then be fixtured so that the fluid inlet and fluid outlet openings for the part are sealed off. After the interior cavity of the part is completely sealed, pressurized air or nitrogen is supplied into the internal cavity of the part while the part is submerged in water. Accordingly, the charged or pressurized part is submerged in a water tank and an operator must watch for escaping bubbles on the exterior surface of the part. This segment of the traditional manufacturing method wherein leaks are located in the part is called the water-immersion bubble test—also called “bubble testing” or “dunking.” The larger and more frequent the bubbles, then leakage in the surface sealant is bigger. Moreover, relatively small bubbles demonstrate that a smaller leak exists in the part. Where the part has multiple separate passages inside the part, the process of fixturing and sealing for each separate passage/area must be repeated again until all separate passages/areas have been addressed.
After the leaks on the exterior of the part are identified, the part is then removed from the water, dried off, and then the entire part is submerged again in a surface sealant so as to apply surface sealant again to the entire part. The process may have to be repeated in order to make sure that there are no more leaks in the exterior surface sealant.
However, as demonstrated, this traditional manufacturing process requires the step of fixturing the part to completely seal off the interior cavity of the part for a bubble test, and then applying surface sealant again to the part by submerging the entire part again in a tank of surface sealant—after detecting any leaks in the external surface sealant during the bubble test. Accordingly, these traditional manufacturing process steps make it rather challenging to manufacture and produce a leak tight part in a time-efficient and cost-efficient manner. Moreover, this traditional process only identifies leaks that exist on the exterior surface of the part (not on the interior surface of the part).
In conclusion, the traditional manufacturing process fails to detect new leaks in the surface sealant on both the interior surface of the part as well as the exterior surface of the part. Moreover, the traditional manufacturing process is particularly time consuming due to the need to fixture the part and seal off the openings, and particularly expensive due to the need to re-dip the entire part in a surface sealant to close all new leaks in the surface sealant of the part.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved and more cost/time efficient methodology to manufacture a leak tight part.